Nine
by frombluetored
Summary: Nine strangers are kidnapped and sealed in a room together. Their captor, an unhinged man who calls himself 'the Master', gives them an order: they have to determine how they're all connected. They have ten minutes to figure it out before one of them is killed. And then the clock restarts. [Based on the film 'Nine Dead'. Action-based plot, but the primary subplot is Clara/11/12].
1. Nine

**A/n:** This AU is based on a thriller called Nine Dead. The general plot is the same, but most everything else will be different for those who have already seen the film (it's on Netflix instant for those who want to watch it!). This is my first time writing anything in third person objective, as it's literally my biggest 'writing fear' so to speak, so my apologies for any and all heavy-handedness!

* * *

A man was sitting at a cluttered desk in an empty, concrete room.

His hands shook as he traced out words frantically, his eyes watching as the pen bore down into the paper. When he finally set down his pen, he reached instead for his mug of tea, but his hands were just a bit too unsteady; he spilled his tea down the front of his shirt and all over the papers littering the wooden top of his desk. He ignored the hot liquid seeping down into the white cotton and reached instead for the paper in front of him, quickly using his hands to push as much tea off onto the floor as he could. But after only a few moments of frantic batting at the surface, he stopped and stared at the sodden paper. The words he'd written were smeared black, like someone had rubbed wet ashes onto the paper. He stared at them and took shallow, heaving breaths. He did not blink as he reached down and carefully pried the thick, damp paper up.

The words were tilting and blurred, but not even the tea had eroded them completely. His eyes trailed over them slowly, and as he read, he shook harder than he had before.

_What have you done to make guilt follow you?_

_What is it that keeps you awake at night, that sucks confidence and inner peace from you, that trails after you like some sort of sickly stench? __What have you done to other people? What actions are impossible to escape? _

_What makes you guilty?_

_Answer this, and you'll know why you're here. Embrace the guilt and let it go, and I'll let you go._

_Refuse to answer and you'll die suffocating in it. Mouthful of blood, heart full of guilt. This is how most of you were destined to bow out. I find comfort in the silence of falling._

* * *

The pub had been rowdy all night, but hardly anyone paid it any mind except for the sparse newcomers.

It was a shivering wet place, compressed between two large department stores in a space where a damp alley used to be. The run off from the department stores flooded the roof of the pub anytime it rained, causing double the precipitation. Because of this, it'd been aptly named Rainy's Pub.

The owners didn't have a bell above the door, because the ankle-deep puddles of rainwater out front served the same purpose. Customers were coming when you heard their boots sloshing and their laughter swelling around the pub, all humid and hot. The less than pleasant conditions of the pub never seemed to deter people from coming, but on the odd dry night, the population of the place doubled.

It was dry and crackling on the winter night that everything changed. The large fireplace was snapping pieces of firewood, friends were lumped together in tight groups, and the warmth from everyone's body heat made it useless to keep the furnace running. A football game had been playing, but even the most avid watchers were otherwise occupied. It was rare to have good company, good liquor, and good weather, and everyone seemed to be yanking as much from the night as they could. All except for a young, blonde man sitting at the bar by himself.

The looks he'd shoot the table behind him every few moments were hard and slicing. His hazel eyes were the only two in the entire pub that weren't dancing from the warmth of the night; his were icy and wet, like ice sweating as it begins to melt. And perhaps the man himself was melting. There was a certain jittery nature to his movements, an unsteadiness that might have warned the bartender on any other night. But this night was too alive to see death, even the kind that warns you beforehand with jittery eyes and slippery words.

He was teetering when he stood and began approaching the table behind him, circled by a group of university students. The man himself was around their age, but something in his furious gait made it well known to anyone who might have been watching that he wasn't friendly with them in any way. The group was so caught up in their laughter that they didn't notice until the blonde-haired man was right behind a man with wild, brown hair, and even then they looked blankly at him.

"Can we help you with something?" An American man asked, looking curiously at the man behind his friend.

"A long time ago." He said, and the friends had just begun shooting each other odd looks when the man pulled a hunting knife from inside his coat and brought it to the man's neck.

He'd pushed down quickly, eliciting three drops of blood to roll down the man's neck as he sliced the top layer of his skin. The man looked down at his victim's neck, at the bobbing of his Adam's apple and the straining of his muscles as he struggled, and then he hesitated. He glanced up, quickly and uncertainly, and it was then that the American and a woman with blonde hair yanked hard on his shoulders from behind.

He lost his grip on the man's neck as he jerked backwards. The blonde woman and the American man stepped to the side quickly as the attacker fell back into the table behind him, interrupting what must have been a date between a young brunette and her bowtie-wearing boyfriend. They rose to their feet immediately as the table bucked and turned over, effectively trapping the knife man underneath. He gave a groan, but it seemed to ring with fury more than pain.

"What the fuck?!" the American man gasped, turning to look at his blonde female friend. A brunette woman from their table rose.

"Do you know him, Ten?" She asked the victim. He was touching his sliced neck with wide eyes. He turned around in his seat shakily and looked towards where his attacker had fallen, but he was underneath the table and unable to be seen.

"I don't know!" He gasped. "M-Maybe? I don't…"

"Gwen," the American man addressed their brunette friend. "Call the police."

"Tosh is on it already." Gwen replied, pointing towards their friend who already had her mobile phone to her ear.

As the blonde woman approached the cut man somewhat hysterically, he regained his strength rather quickly. He stroked her blonde hair back and smiled bravely.

"S'all right, Rose." He comforted. "I'm fine."

It was the big-chinned man from the fallen table who noticed that things were, in fact, not all right. He looked at the table as it began moving up, and with his split second to warn, he did not call out to the others. Instead, he reached over and wrapped his hand around his date's bicep, tugging her behind him in one, quick motion. And then the armed man was staggering to his feet, knife still in hand, eyes wild and furious.

"THIS IS MY NIGHT!" He screeched. All eyes in the pub had been on the scene before, but now everyone looked afraid. The American man took a slight step towards him. The attacker didn't miss it.

"DON'T MOVE!" He screamed. The American fell still and watched as the attacker's eyes danced over the crowd of people. He looked from his first target, to the American, to the woman called Gwen. And then he heard a whisper behind him.

"Clara," the bowtie man whispered.

Had the attacker been watching them, he would have noticed the short woman sneaking up behind him. And had her boyfriend been perhaps a little less protective, he would have kept his mouth shut. But neither of those situations occurred.

The man with the knife had the woman in his arms quickly. Where he'd been hesitant before, he wasn't now. There was room to suggest that he'd once cared for the man he'd lashed out on first, as he'd been careful with his touch, as if there was still a part of him that didn't want to cause harm. But the woman named Clara was a stranger. He had no concern for her wellbeing.

Likewise, her boyfriend and the American man had no concern for the attacker's wellbeing. He'd only managed to lift the knife when both men came at him. The American man aimed a punch to the side of face while Clara kicked hard at his legs. He let go of her instinctively, and her boyfriend reached out and pulled her to safety once she was released. And then he turned to the man.

It was a fair fight at first. The attacker gave as much as the American man did, but then Clara's boyfriend joined in. The attacker was still putting up a fight—even if he'd dropped his knife—so a brunet man joined in, much to Tosh's displeasure.

"Owen, the police are coming! Leave it!" She'd screamed.

But they'd been taken over by something. The men were bridling with panicked anger; it was clear on their warped expressions. Jack and Clara's boyfriend boxed at the attacker's ears until he finally stooped down to the ground, heaving and crying. He did not plead for them to stop, but he didn't have to. Anyone could see he was broken by his crumpled posture.

Everyone was so caught up in checking on their friends when the police arrived that they missed something.

The attacker lifted his hands up to his ears and he pressed over them, squeezing his eyes shut, like someone was shooting off fireworks near his ears. When he screamed, they all assumed it was out of rage.

The night had been dry, but when the two female officers pulled the man from the floor, it was wet with periodic splatters of blood.

Rainy's had never been able to escape the downpour, after all.

* * *

**SIX YEARS LATER**

Clara Oswald was frantically fanning smoke away from her oven with a National Geographic magazine, her face red from the heat and her hair slipping from her neat updo.

"Don't go off, don't go off, _don't you even think about it_," she chanted underneath her breath. She waved the magazine quicker and glanced up and backwards, her eyes landing on the smoke detector in the kitchen doorway. She looked back towards the oven, and once she could see past the thick smoke, she reached in with her bare hand and yanked the smoldering cheese soufflé from the insides of her angry oven.

"Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck," she cursed in pain. She jumped over to the sink and quickly dropped the soufflé into the bottom—right on top of last night's dirty dishes—and then she flung the faucet up. She stuck her pink hand underneath the cold water and squeezed her eyes shut tightly. With the cause of the smoke now drowning underneath the running water, the smoke slowly began to drift outside the open window. She glanced back towards the quiet smoke alarm and let out a relieved breath, her unscathed hand rising to press to the side of her face. Her shoulders sagged in reprieve.

"Clara?"

She quickly leaned to the right and opened the drawer with the kitchen towels. She moved it underneath the water and then wrung it until it was damp. She turned the water off as she wrapped the towel tightly around her singed hand, and just as she turned around the face the doorway, a young woman walked through. She stopped dead in her tracks as her eyes scanned the open oven and the hazy air.

"Burn another soufflé?" She surmised with a grin. "When will you just give up already?"

Clara grimaced. "Thanks for the vote of confidence, Angie. And thanks for letting yourself into my home."

Angie crossed the room and sat down at the stool in front of the breakfast bar, her expression unaffected.

"Well, I knocked for a good thirty seconds and no one came. So I got bored." She explained.

Clara lifted her hand and looked pointedly at it. "I was a bit preoccupied. I was trying to keep the fire alarm from going off, because you know how it frightens Smith."

Angie glanced around. "Where _is _Smith? Normally he's waiting for me at the door."

Clara frowned. Her unharmed hand settled on top of the damp towel and squeezed, as if testing the injury. She glanced from Angie a moment later, her eyes landing on the counter instead. She grabbed the jug of orange juice and pulled a small cup over, filling it quickly.

"He's still asleep. He's not so excited about being babysat today." Clara admitted. She looked up once the cup was filled. "It's not you, it's just that he's convinced this is the day aliens are invading planet earth, and he's not so keen on having his mum away from him during the…outerspace invasion."

Angie's eyebrows rose. "Ah. I see." She watched Clara carry the cup to the table and set it down in front of an empty child's plate. "So he's still on his alien kick?"

Clara crossed over to the stool beside Angie and slid up onto it, her free hand rising to knead at her temple. She extended her wrapped-up hand a moment later, brandishing the interesting bracelet around her wrist. It looked like an old charm bracelet that had had all the charms removed and replaced with bits of tinfoil, twisted to make what almost resembled spikes.

"He gave this to me. He says it'll keep the aliens from reading my thoughts and finding me." Clara shared. She rotated her wrist and watched the bracelet spin. When she looked up, Angie was looking at her with an uneasy expression.

"He's very specific for a daydreaming kid." Angie said. "Do you ever worry that…"

She stopped. Clara pinned her with an accusatory glance.

"What? That he's troubled? Poorly adjusted?" She challenged. She held Angie's slightly-guilty expression and then she shook her head. "He's normal, Angie. He gets extremely high scores on every sort of intelligence or developmental tests they give him. His pediatrician told me he's highly creative and that he's latched onto sci-fi like many little boys do."

Clara stopped and then lowered her eyes. Her next words were tinged with embarrassment. "Actually, you know, I worry about him being right more than I worry about him being mad."

Angie rolled her eyes. "Rubbish. There's no such thing as aliens." She gave the kitchen a sweeping glance-over and looked back towards Clara. "Why's he still asleep, anyway? Doesn't he normally rise with the sun?

Clara slid off the stool and crossed over to the pantry. She pulled a box of Curiously Cinnamon out and crossed over to the counter as she pried the box open.

"He was up all night." She replied. Her hands shook some as she pulled a small bowl from the cabinet and began pouring the cereal into it. Angie walked quickly to the refrigerator and pulled out a pint of milk, passing it to Clara. She smiled briefly in thanks as she prepared the boy's breakfast.

"Nightmare?" Angie asked.

Clara shook her head. "No, he rarely has nightmares. He knew I was going to work today and wanted to play games and watch movies last night, and we both lost track of time."

Clara averted her eyes like there was something she wasn't saying. Angie seemed to notice by the curious way she looked at her.

"What?" She pressed.

Clara shrugged, her eyes still locked on the countertop.

"I just feel guilty for leaving him on a Saturday." She admitted quietly. She reached up and rubbed her face tiredly and then blinked rapidly once her hands were lowered, as if against a steady building of tears. Angie reached over and stiffly patted her shoulder.

"It's not your fault, Clara. Can't be helped. Did you tell him why?" Angie asked.

Clara nodded. "I told him about the flood and how I had to remove all of the stuff from my classroom so they could redo the floors, but he doesn't get why he can't come help me move it all back in." She shook her head with sad amusement. "That attitude is all his father, it really is. He's a tiny little five-year-old and he's been insisting all week that he _can_ carry a table that weighs more than he does." Clara smiled and looked towards the doorway. "God, I love him, Angie. He's the weirdest kid and I love him even more for it."

Angie smiled softly and reached over, giving her bracelet a light tug. "You'd have to love him to wear that."

Clara's smile slowly dwindled. She looked back to Angie. "Be patient with him today, okay? I don't care so much if he watches a lot of TV. He'll probably want to build Lego spaceships with you for hours, and I know it can get exhausting, but humor him, all right?"

Angie nodded immediately. "Of course."

Clara smiled at her. "Thanks, Angie. I really appreciate it." She looked down at the watch on her wrist and sighed. "I ought to leave soon. Let's go back together; he'll be upset if I don't say goodbye. He's in my room because apparently aliens have the coordinates of his bedroom."

Clara set her son's breakfast out and then walked with Angie back to her bedroom. The heavy ivory curtains were still drawn and the room was dark except for the light coming from the cracked bathroom door. Clara Oswald's son was a tiny mound beneath the duvet; the only part of him visible was a few tufts of dark hair on the white pillow. Clara padded across the hardwood floor and sat down on the edge of the mattress, gently pulling the blankets down so his sleeping face was free. She stroked the hair back from his forehead and leaned forward, pressing a brief kiss to the top of his head.

"Smith, I've got to go now," she whispered. "I love you. I'll see you tonight, okay? Have fun with Angie."

Smith's eyelids fluttered open. He eyed his mother sleepily, his small nose wrinkling as he frowned. He reached forward and touched her forearm, tracing down until his fingers touched the bracelet, as if checking to make sure she still had it on. He reached for her then, his small arms wrapping around her middle as she clutched him closely to her. She kissed the top of his head again and exhaled deeply with trepidation. Her hands were quivering as she gently let go of her son and stood up.

It wasn't really her fault. She had no way to know that her son's silly predictions were, in a way, correct. The gnawing worry she'd spoken about to Angie must not have been enough to keep her at home, because she fixed her hair, grabbed her bag, and left the house anyway. She was out of the cab and walking up to the school steps in the back of the building when she winced and reached back to slap at her neck, like a bug had stung her, but there was no bug. Her hand made contact with another person's hand just as the drug kicked in and her body crumpled.

* * *

It was an older man who regained consciousness first.

He blinked his eyes open and let out a quiet groan of pain, reaching instinctively to touch at his head, only to have his action impeded by the handcuffs chaining him to a steel bar. He tugged at his left hand and followed the handcuffs with his eyes, immediately reaching with his right hand to pull at them as if he might get the other side unlatched from around the bar. But he gave up only a few seconds later. His eyes widened as he struggled to sit up and take in his surroundings: a round, cement room with nine bars attached vertically from the floor to the ceiling. And nine different bodies handcuffed to them.

He inhaled sharply and turned to his right, staring hard at the person closest to him, a young woman with dark hair. She was lying face down, her left arm stretched back behind her at an uncomfortable angle due to the handcuffs. The other eight people in the room were in similar states, hunched over or collapsed in awkward positions, their eyes shut.

The man used his right hand to push himself along the floor as he scooted as close to his neighbor as his chained arm would allow. He moved until his left arm was stretched to the point of what must have been physical pain, and then he touched the tip of his quivering fingertips to the young stranger's shoulder, giving her a light nudge.

"Hello?" He croaked. His voice was scratchy and deep. He cleared it once and then nudged her once more. "Hello?"

She was breathing, her back moving up and down slowly, but it didn't seem to reassure the man much. He watched her closely for a moment longer and then cast his worried eyes out over the rest of the prisoners. He lifted his right hand to his mouth and bit nervously at his thumbnail, but his nervousness lasted only a moment longer. There was a stirring from across the room, and soon, a young man was slowly rising.

It only took him a moment.

"For fuck's sake," he groaned. He pushed himself upright and sat on his bottom, staring at the handcuffs holding him in place with frustration. "Not again."

"Again?" The older man demanded. His voice was shivering and stressed. While the younger man had on stained jogging clothes, the older man was in a fine navy suit, one with a red silk lining. His shoes were the shiniest thing in the room, save perhaps the tinfoil bracelet the woman to his right was wearing. He didn't seem to fit in with the location in the slightest.

The younger man looked up in surprise at the sound of the first man's voice. He looked around them slowly, taking in the other seven people around them. And then he furrowed his brow.

"What the hell?" He breathed in astonishment. He gave the handcuffs a hard tug, but he too gave up after only a few futile moments. He looked to the woman to his left and addressed his next words to the only other conscious person in the room. "Are they dead?"

The suited man blinked wildly, his eyes moving to skim around their fellow occupants once again. He watched each of their chests rise and fall slowly. He bit at his nail again.

"No. They're…" he stopped. Looked back up. "I think we were injected with something."

The younger man had been struggling with the lock on the handcuffs. He looked up at him.

"Injected with something? Blimey. Waking up handcuffed, well, that's nothing new. Bit of a weekend-trend, really. But being drugged and taken prisoner? This is either the most elaborate orgy or we're fucked." He whistled lowly and shook his head, looking almost humored by the entire situation. He gave up messing with the handcuffs and shrugged, heaving a deep sigh. "Well. I'm Jack Harkness. What's your name? Are you part of the New Londoners Sex Organization? Because on their questionnaire, I marked 'highly interested' on their 'organized rendezvous' inquiry, and I was thinking this could be—"

The elderly man's expression had been twisting with disgust during the other man's entire spiel. Finally, he broke.

"No." He interrupted firmly. "No, I'm not a member, and I'm certainly not consenting or agreeing to any sort of 'surprise orgy'." He paused and reached up with his free hand, scratching at the side of his head. "I'm the Doctor. Dr. James Johnson. And no, before you ask, I'm not a medical doctor and I won't look at anything growing on your cock. I'm a psychiatrist."

Jack look affronted. "Exactly what type of man do you take me for, _Doctor_?" He insisted. When the Doctor failed to respond, his face gave way to a sudden grin. He winked. "Whatever it is, you're probably right."

The Doctor rose to his feet slowly, sliding the handcuffs up the pole as he did. He winced as his knees gave sharp cracks. He kneaded at his lower back with his free hand as he turned back to his brunette neighbor. She'd moved since he'd glanced at her last, but her eyes were still shut. He turned back to Jack.

"I'm afraid this is probably quite bad."

His tone broadcasted his anxiousness clearly. His words were weaving and wretched, with the tone of someone watching a train speeding right towards them. Whereas Jack looked only moderately upset, he carried the air of someone who knew the true extent of the danger.

"Oh, well, things are only as bad as you make them out to be, aren't they?" Jack tried. He cleared his throat after that. "But, uh, being drugged and handcuffed doesn't leave such a great taste in my mouth. Not in this context, anyway."

The Doctor's attention was drawn to the woman beside him when she gave a sudden gasp. He turned his body as much towards her as he could and then crouched down slowly, watching as she slowly lifted her face from the concrete floor. She sat up unsteadily, and by the time she was upright, it was obvious that she'd had a rougher time than the rest. Her lip was split and swollen and there was dried blood caked on her chin.

"Hello there, blossom," Jack flirted casually. The Doctor shot him a furious look and shifted closer to his injured neighbor.

"Are you okay?" He asked gruffly.

She lifted a quivering hand to her split lip and then looked up in surprise. Her eyes locked on the Doctor's, and hers were big and brown and filled with alarm.

"Where am I?" She demanded. She gave her left arm a futile tug and scanned their surroundings frantically. Her chest rose and fell erratically as she began breathing quickly. "What's going on?"

The Doctor sighed with disappointment. "Well, dear, I was hoping you might have some idea."

The woman had been rightly distressed by her sudden capture, but when her eyes fell on the man across from the Doctor on the other side of the room, her demeanor broke right in half. She cringed backwards until her spine was pressed against the concrete wall and her left arm was extended straight out, her wrist held in place by the handcuffs. Her right hand pressed over her mouth as her eyes shut quickly.

"No," she insisted. The word was quietly uttered with no expectation of reply, but the Doctor was edging towards her anyway. He moved until his left arm was stretched out like hers, and then he touched the woman's slim ankle. She looked up at him quickly, her dark eyes swimming with tears. The florescent lights danced in them in a flickering, dizzying manner.

"What's your name?" He started with calmly. His profession suddenly fit him well.

The woman lowered her hand and clutched her thigh, breathing deeply through her mouth as she struggled to process whatever it was that had shaken her up so.

"Clara," she said quietly.

"Clara." The Doctor repeated. His voice was smooth and almost entrancing. "Right then, Clara. This is what we know: we were all injected with something, and now we're in here, chained. But at least we're all in here together, yeah? That's automatically better."

Her eyes flickered to that same dark haired man quickly. She looked back up at the Doctor a moment later and gave a slow but definitive nod of her head.

"Yeah." She agreed.

They all came around slowly and with varying degrees of injury. It was the woman next to Jack who woke up next. She spoke very little after getting the general briefing of their situation from the Doctor. The dark haired woman next to her woke afterwards, sporting a fractured middle finger. She'd seen the man, she said. She'd punched him in the jawbone before she'd been injected. Next was a sandy-haired man, near Clara's age on other her other side, who was wearing nursing scrubs. He fiddled quietly with his handcuffs after getting the basics. The woman beside the man across from the Doctor came to with a single-minded determination: to locate a woman called 'Jenny'. She didn't have to look very far, though; the woman in question was between Rory and Martha, slowly waking up with small moans of pain.

Clara was staring with determination at the wall as the very last man woke up. He sat up slowly and reached up, touching his neck.

"My bowtie," he whispered, his voice strained and indignant. "Someone's taken my bow—oh. Oh my."

He didn't even have the time to get any of the sparse information the others had, because at that moment, the steel door beside both him and the Doctor was thrown open. There was no ceremony to it, no dramatic build up. The blonde-haired man strolled into the room and stopped, his fingers curled around the handle of a handgun.

"What the fuck, man?" Jack broke the short silence. "Why've you got us locked up like this? What would your mother think?"

"What do you want from us?" The woman to Jack's right asked.

It only took a slight raise of the man's hand to draw forth complete silence. There was unsteadiness in his eyes, an off-kilter glean that didn't seem quite right. They all watched him with wide eyes.

"My name is the Master." His voice was soft. "And today is your Judgment Day."

The silence was unnerving. He looked carefully at each and every one of their faces.

"You are all here for a reason. You are all guilty of something, something that you've been running from up until now. You all deserve to die right now, by way of this gun, but I'm not going to have it play out like that. I'm going to give you all a chance to have a say in your fate." He took a few long strides into the room. His fingers flexed on the gun as his eyes fell on the dark-haired woman directly across from the door. She stared at him with fear, and just as she began to cringe back into the wall and brace herself for a bullet in her skull, he spun quickly and pointed the gun between the bowtie-man's eyes. His light green eyes widened only slightly around the corners. He seemed woozy from the drugs still, and it almost looked as if he hadn't ruled out the possibility that it was all just a nightmare.

From the other side of the room, too quiet for anyone to hear amid the chaos, Clara's breath caught in her throat.

"I could do it now." The Master whispered. "But where would the fun be in that?"

After a few tense moments, he turned back and lowered the mouth of the gun back to the floor.

"You are all connected somehow. You have ten minutes to figure out how you are, and what it is you're all guilty of doing, and when I come back in, if you haven't figured it out, I will shoot one of you."

Jack and the Doctor met eyes from across the room. They looked back towards the man quickly.

"We will repeat this every ten minutes until either you figure it out, or all of you are dead. Think I won't do it? Think again." He turned and walked over to the door slowly. When he stopped in front of it, he reached to the right and slid down a metal panel, revealing a digital clock. He pressed a button on it. It read: 0:10:00:00.

"The countdown begins when I walk from this room. I'd suggest you talk quickly." He reached into his pocket and flung a handful of colorful chalk onto the floor.

"I'll see you in ten minutes."


	2. Eight

The force from the slamming metal door made their handcuffs rattle against the bars. Immediately, all nine pairs of eyes locked onto the digital clock on the wall. The Master had been right about that; the numbers began moving immediately, counting down without any introduction or pause. It was stressfully quiet until Jack spoke up, his voice feebler than it'd been all day.

"…so it's not some elaborate orgy thing, then."

"What? Why would it be—" the woman's voice was interrupted by another's, and soon, it was complete chaos.

"Is he serious?"

"There's no way he's serious. He's taking the piss."

"Taking the fucking piss? He's handcuffed us and injected us! No one goes to that much trouble—legal trouble, mind you, just to mess with someone!"

"Why would he kidnap nine random people?! People who want to murder random civilians don't go to all this trouble, they just put a bomb in the tube! This is too personal. It's an elaborate prank."

"But we're not all strangers."

It was the bowtie man's quiet, weaving words that quieted everyone else's rapid-fire arguing. Every head flew towards him, except for one. She was too busy breathing shallowly through her mouth, her right hand placed low on her abdomen. She had obviously heard the man's words. But she seemed intent on pretending she hadn't.

"What?"

It was the woman named Jenny who asked the question. Her mousy-brown hair was disheveled around her face and there was a long smudge of mud down her right cheek, like she'd been dragged over dirt. She turned and shot a look towards a woman with a green pixie cut, the same woman who'd asked about Jenny first and foremost the minute she woke up, mindless of her own imprisonment. Everyone glanced around the room and noticed the anomaly in no time at all.

"You," the woman beside Jack called. "What's your name?"

Clara did not respond.

"Clara."

Everyone turned and looked towards the bowtie man after he spoke. His face was scrunched up with agony, although he had no visible cuts or bruises on his being. He was staring at the short woman like she'd personally placed that gun between his eyes and pulled the trigger, sending his brains splattering all over the back wall. Clara, too, looked equally brainless for a moment as she looked up at him, her doe-eyes wide and panicked.

"You know each other?" the green-haired woman demanded firmly. She gave them around five seconds to respond, and when they did nothing but look towards each other, she rattled the handcuffs angrily against the pole to get their attention. "Well? We're already down to nine minutes! We've got to figure this out, and if you two know each other, that means we're closer to figuring out how the rest of us fit in!"

Clara's voice was scratchy. "It has nothing to do with any of you. Apparently, it had nothing to do with him, either."

The man's spine curved downward, like Clara's words were physically weighing down on him. He reached up and rubbed over his watery eyes and looked towards Clara desperately.

"Please, it's not like that," he whispered.

Her gaze was injured. "Fuck you."

He flinched back, more frightened of those words than the gun that'd just been pointed at him. Clara gained some sort of sick strength from his injury and leaned forward some, her chest rising high as she inhaled deeply.

"I waited for you. Do you want to know how long it took me to realize you'd fucked off?"

He couldn't meet her eyes. He stared at his hands.

"Three years." She bit out. Everyone exchanged looks, obviously debating whether or not this conversation was mutually beneficial for all of them with the ticking clock. Clara continued before they had the opportunity to decide. "Can you believe that, John? I tricked myself into believing that something terrible had happened, that you'd been forced to leave me, for an entire three years. And after all that waiting, here you are." She coughed out a small, bitter laugh, but her eyes were wet and dancing with moisture in the light. "I could have done with dying without seeing you again. This is just cruel punishment."

He looked physically sick. "No, Clara—"

The green-haired woman interrupted.

"We've got eight minutes. How the fuck do you know each other? Start talking now. We don't have much time. One of us will die in eight minutes unless you—"

"We don't know that!" The woman beside Jack interrupted. She pushed her light brown hair behind her ears. "We have no evidence of that!"

The man beside Clara spoke up. His voice was stronger than expected; he looked like it'd be soft, sweet. But he spoke powerfully and surely.

"The gun was evidence, I think. The green-haired woman was right before. He wouldn't have gone to all this trouble if he didn't mean it." He turned his gaze to Clara. "How do you know each other?"

She had to glance towards the clock before she could get herself to answer, but just as she parted her lips, the bowtie man's voice flittered up above the rest. It was tinged with giving up.

"It's probably best for me to tell this. Because there's quite a lot she doesn't know."

Clara's expression read _fuck you_ more clearly than if she'd actually said it. He looked away from her hateful glare and looked towards the man he was addressing.

"We went to university together. We dated for a year. Or at least, that was the cover."

"The cover?" demanded Jenny.

The bowtie man was desperate to meet Clara's eyes; he stared at her until she finally looked up, but she could only hold his green eyes for a few moments. She looked away again.

"I'm…well. My real name is Detective Matthew Brown. Not…John Smith. But that was my name when I was undercover. I was trying to infiltrate the university, to put a stop to a really bad drug ring on campus, and it worked. But…when it was over—that is, once we'd brought all those responsible in—I couldn't stay there anymore. I wasn't allowed to contact any of the connections I'd made undercover while the trials were going on." He shifted forward, like if he just pulled hard enough he might be able to get free from his cuffs to comfort the woman, but all he managed to get was a red mark where the cuffs were tearing into his left wrist. He swallowed roughly and stilled. "Clara. I came back for you, once they were put away. But you were gone."

The truth must have been more terrible than anything she could have imagined. She must have spent so long weaving theories of where he'd gone, and nothing must have come close to the idea that everything had been a lie, even his own name. Her hands shook so hard the rattling of the cuffs filled the entire space, echoing around the hard walls. Her eyes swam in tears before they crested and spilled fast down her face. The sight of her tears made some spring up in the detective's eyes.

"You lied to me." She whispered wetly. "Everything you said. You made me fall in love with you, and the entire time you—" She stopped and swallowed thickly, finally looking up to meet his gaze. "You knew how difficult it was for me to love anyone after my mum died, how dare you—how dare you do that—"

"Clara, I came back for you! It wasn't all I lie, I loved you, that was real, I swear! You weren't at your flat and I waited for months, thinking you were on holiday, but then someone else moved in, and—"

Clara flinched and reached up, pressing her right hand over her right ear. She lifted her left shoulder to press over her other ear.

"Stop lying to me!" She shrieked. "Stop! I don't want to hear it! If you wanted me, you could have found me! _He_ found me, that insane man, so a _detective_ is more than capable!"

"I was able to find your new address in the systems when you started working at Coal Hill, but then I saw you walking in with this man and a child, and I thought-"

"Seven minutes." The woman beside Jack interrupted. The man formerly known as John Smith shot her an irritated look.

"That man was a coworker," Clara said shortly. But this time, her voice was steely and drawn. She looked towards the clock and then reached up with her right hand, wiping her tears back. "She's right. We've got seven minutes. This isn't helping anyone."

Everyone watched as she slid forward as far as she could go and carefully grabbed one of the pieces of chalk nearest to her. She clutched it and sniffed. Everyone exchanged glances as she stood and walked over to the wall behind her. Her handwriting quivered as she wrote out CLARA OSWALD.

"I'm Clara Oswald," she addressed the group. Her hand quickly traced out more, adding words as she spoke. "I'm an English teacher. Born in Blackpool, been living in London for eight years. I'm twenty-seven years old. I've got a son. I have no idea why I'm here. I've never so much as gotten a parking fine."

She closed her fingers around the chalk and turned, staring expectantly at everyone else. "And you all are?"

The woman next to Jack stepped up next. Her chalk squeaked as it ran over the smooth, concrete wall.

"I'm Sarah Jane Smith. Journalist. A lot of people want me dead, because I'm not afraid to write the truth. I'm forty-nine years old."

The green-haired woman spoke up.

"Sarah Jane, did he look familiar to you? Is he perhaps someone you've written an article about?" She asked.

Sarah Jane turned around and grimaced, her thumb nail tracing a nervous line into the chalk piece.

"I've written so many articles. I simply can't remember all their names and faces. It's possible, though."

"Have you lived in London for at least the past eight years?" the man on Clara's other side asked. "Maybe that's the connection."

"Lived here my entire life." Sarah Jane responded quickly. Her eyes moved around the room rapidly, filling prematurely with hope. They all looked around, waiting to see if anyone would say they didn't fit that pattern, and then—

The Doctor's Scottish accent was tinged with regret as he spoke up.

"I moved here two years ago. I was in Glasgow before."

He moved forward as far as he could, but the pieces of chalk were too far near the middle of the round room. Clara moved towards him and passed him her piece of chalk. While he turned to write, she grabbed another.

"I'm Dr. James Johnson. I'm a psychiatrist. When you do what I do, you make mistakes, and there's a lot to feel guilty for. Likewise, there are many people who probably would love to kidnap me and shoot me in the head. It would take all day to go through the list. I'm fifty-five years old. I've got an ex-wife in Glasgow who lives with my daughter and son-in-law."

The man on Clara's other side looked towards Clara quickly, and then to Sarah Jane.

"I've got a little girl." He shared. "I'm Rory. I'm a nurse."

Clara turned and met his eyes. She looked to Sarah Jane as well.

"Sarah Jane, do you have a child?" Clara asked quickly. "Maybe that's it. Maybe we've all got children and he's unhappy with our parenting or something."

"I haven't got a child," Jack spoke up. He paused after that. "Well, you know, it's actually entirely plausible that I've got a lot of children I don't know about. So I suppose we could run with that."

"No we can't." The bowtie man spoke up. "I haven't got a child."

Clara ran right over his words with her own, turning quickly towards Jenny. "Jenny?"

"No, I don't," Jenny answered. "And neither does Vastra. We're married."

Rory and Clara's shoulders sagged. Sarah Jane finally answered.

"Nor do I. I'm sorry."

"Damn." Rory whispered. He rubbed his face tiredly and glanced towards the clock, but the numbers he saw made him look away quickly, his face paling.

"We're not getting anywhere. Let's just do names, quickly. Perhaps it's not a connection so much as guilt." The green-haired woman said quickly. "I'm Vastra. My wife and I are cops, partners actually. The worst thing I've ever done was three years ago. I accidentally shot a young boy. He was only sixteen."

The detective looked up. "Has…has anyone else accidentally killed someone?"

It was quiet. Clara looked at him and then looked away, her expression an odd mixture between pain and nausea. The dark haired woman between Jenny and Sarah Jane cleared her throat.

"I have."

Everyone looked at her. She hadn't spoken since the initial arguments; she'd been listening quietly to everyone and thinking.

"I'm Martha Jones. I'm a doctor. There have been some deaths that I feel responsible for. But what I need to say is that I know you, Doctor. We talked a year ago. I called you for a consultation."

The Doctor moved forward as far as his chained arm would allow. He looked at her and then nodded slowly. "Yes, that's right. Dr. Jones. You've recommended quite a few patients to me since I've been in London." He recalled.

The detective's voice was rushed. His words moved almost as quickly as the seconds were flying by on that digital clock.

"There's a connection. At some point, every one of us has come across one of your patients. The question is which patient. Did either of you recognize that man, the Master?"

The Doctor glanced back towards the door. He shook his head after a moment's contemplation.

"No, I don't think so. That man had scars all over his face—I would have remembered that."

Martha shrugged. "He was vaguely familiar, but I couldn't tell you a name, much less a diagnosis."

Jack cursed underneath his breath. They all looked around at each other helplessly. The countdown had just reached four minutes.

"Perhaps he really is taking the piss." Vastra suggested weakly. She'd been the one so venomously against that theory in the beginning, but she was pale and shaking now.

"We'll know in four minutes." The Doctor responded. He looked around the room, at all the fearful people with their wide eyes either on the floor or each other. He stood straighter. "Okay. So let's look at this differently. In this room we have two police, a detective, a medical doctor, a psychiatrist, a nurse, a teacher, and a journalist…what do you do, Jack Harkness?"

The bowtie man looked up towards Jack suddenly, his light eyebrows furrowed. Jack didn't notice.

"I'm a private investigator." He responded. "And before either of you cops ask, l've done a shitload of illegal shit to a lot of people."

"Lovely," Sarah Jane sighed.

The Doctor brought his hands together and rubbed his palms as he thought. "Okay. So what do all of those occupations have in common?"

It was quiet for a good ten seconds. Clara broke the silence.

"Public services?" She guessed. "In a way. We all service the general public."

The Doctor looked towards her and smiled briefly. It was one of the first smiles the room had seen, and the younger woman was so surprised that she smiled back by instinct.

"Good," he praised. He looked at the rest of the group. "She's right. So at some point, we've all stumbled across and wronged the same man."

"But I don't treat children," Martha spoke up. She looked towards the Doctor. "And I certainly wouldn't have been able to recommend one to an adult psychiatrist, either."

"What do children have to do with this?" Sarah Jane asked.

Martha pointed towards Clara. "She's a teacher. She works with children."

"So perhaps it's an adult she's worked with?" Rory suggested quickly.

"Jack Harkness," the detective called. He walked forward slightly and peered around Vastra, looking towards the man. "Your name is familiar."

Jack squinted his eyes. "Yeah, man. Have we slept together before?" He snapped. "Were you that cute man who wore the rainbow—"

"No, it's not that." The detective interrupted quickly. "You're American. When did you move to London?"

"About nine years ago. I was an exchange student and I never went back home." Jack responded. He cocked his head to the side. "Now that you say that, you do look familiar in a non-sexual context."

The detective looked towards Clara, who studiously avoided his eyes.

"Does he look familiar to you, too, Clara?" He asked urgently. "Think. Maybe I met him while undercover."

She snapped. She went from avoiding his eyes to pinning him with a hot, biting gaze.

"I didn't even know you were undercover, how the hell would I know everyone you met while you were pretending to be someone else? I never knew you at all. I don't even know what to call you."

"John. You can still call me John, because I still _am _John, even if...I'm not. You know?" He pleaded.

Clara looked away. "No. I don't know."

"Two minutes," Rory called tightly. "Please, Clara, where might you have met that man before?"

She looked to Rory and then reluctantly turned her eyes to Jack. She examined him slowly. It was only the slight quivering of her shoulders that gave away her fear.

"Perhaps we had a class together," she finally guessed. "What university did you study at?"

Vastra's voice was frustrated. "I don't think this is relevant. We're looking for someone we all met much later, once we all had our jobs, yeah? That's what the Doctor said, anyway."

"It's just a theory," the Doctor said quickly. "Anything could be it. It's worth talking about. Jack, why didn't you go back to America?"

Jack fumbled with his words. He hadn't expected that question.

"Well…I…okay, as cheesy as it sounds…I met someone. Ianto. I stayed for him." He admitted.

"Almost one minute. Martha, have you ever talked to a patient over the phone and recommended him to the Doctor? Is there a possibility that you two never saw his face?" Rory suggested quickly.

Clara lifted her head. She met eyes with John for a brief moment. They both wore the same look of surprised recognition.

"Ianto?" She asked Jack quickly.

He was swept up in the other conversation going on.

"Yeah, that would make sense! If you both consulted with him over the phone," Jack said.

"And maybe he was an offender. Maybe John Smith, or Matthew—whatever, I'm calling you The Detective from now on—, and Jenny and I arrested him at some point." Vastra added.

"Jack, you said Ianto—" Clara tried to interrupt. Her words were smashed down by the force of everyone else's.

"And perhaps I wrote a column about it!" Sarah Jane added.

"Where do I fit in?" Rory asked. "I'm a nurse."

"John," Clara called quietly. It was only the detective who heard her voice. Perhaps he'd been listening out for it for six years. Perhaps his ears couldn't stand the sound of anyone else's. Perhaps he'd thought he'd never hear it again. "We knew a man named Ianto. Do you remember?"

He shifted closer to her, as close as the handcuffs would allow. His Adam's apple bobbed like his heart was lodged in his throat, all from Clara addressing him directly. She could have held the gun to his head and he probably wouldn't have cared, just to have her that close to him again.

"The bartender."

"Yes!" She said, her face painted with relief. She paused and looked at him. Her face said it clearly: the fact that he remembered anything of their time together after all those years made it all that much easier and that much worse. It was easy to write someone off and hate them if they were just selfishly using and lying to you, but if there was a chance any of it was true, it was complicated.

"Which pub was that? He worked at—"

"There were two," Clara recalled quickly, cutting John off. "Marlow's and Sunday West—what was Sunday West called before that?"

On the other side of the room, they were discussing the possibility of the Doctor and Martha both consulting with a patient over the phone, but they weren't getting very far. No one gave much mind to Clara and the detective.

"—I just don't think I would have talked to a patient without meeting them in person, it's just so unlike—"

The shrill beeping interrupted everything and everyone. Nine pairs of eyes turned towards the wall again, as they had in the beginning, but this time the clock read 0:00:00. The Master was everything but tardy; the door swung open the second the beeping stopped.

He took three long strides in. He stopped in the middle of the room. They all stared hard at the gleaming weapon in his hand. Clara clenched her fist around the chalk, like a child grasping tightly to the arm of a teddy bear. Martha swayed on her feet, left to right, left to right. And John was watching Clara with pleading eyes, his lips moving silently. He might have been praying, but whether for or to her one couldn't be certain.

"Please," the Doctor whispered. The man turned and looked at him, his eyes sharp and infuriated. "We just need more time. A bit more. We're getting there."

Rory grimaced and turned his head, like he fully expected the Master to lodge a bullet in the Doctor's head for even daring to ask him that. The Master might have been considering it, but after a moment's contemplation, he turned on his heel so he faced Jack Harkness instead. His face crumbled and Sarah Jane whimpered.

"No, come on, man," Jack whispered. His eyes were as wide and blue as the sky. But he would never have the freedom to see that sky again. Moisture gathered, like milky doves grouping together in a bright, cloudless sky. They took flight and became tears. They spilled from his eyes. "We're trying."

The Master cocked the gun. Jenny began to cry. It was odd, how quickly a life could end. After all those years and all that effort- gone with the flex of a finger. The Master pressed down on the trigger without any prior words. Jack's body flung back from the force of the shot as half his face exploded, bits of skin and brain matter splattering the wall behind him. There was an array of blood splatters behind him haloing his head. His body swayed for a moment, held in place by locked knees and his handcuffed arm, but jerkily he collapsed down onto the ground, face-up. His right eyelid was still open, his blue eye facing up towards the sky. His left eye was shredded. A tear was still sliding down his cheek.

The Master stared at the gaping entry wound. The bullet had entered just below Jack's left eyeball, ripping away at surrounding flesh from the close range shot. The Master leaned over and spoke into it, like it was his ear and they were sharing a private secret.

"I didn't ask you to try. I asked you to do it."

He rose to his feet and crossed over to the wall. He pressed a button on the timer and then left, and the countdown started all over again. They had no time to process the violence before the minutes began sinking away from them.

It was quiet and gasping and the air was thin. Everyone was choking.

Clara unclenched her fingers and a few flakes of crushed chalk fluttered down to the floor. The rest of the powder was caked to her sweaty palm. She watched the puddle of blood growing underneath Jack's body. It was dark, so dark it almost looked like a hole you could jump through, a portal to somewhere else. But his body remained.

"I don't want to die," Sarah Jane whispered. She had flecks of Jack's blood all over her face and neck. Her eyes were unmoving, still locked on Jack's blown-apart face.

"Neither did he," Vastra said. She squared her shoulders and reached up, wiping away the tears that'd clung stubbornly to her bottom eyelashes, refusing to fall. "We have nine minutes."

The puddle of blood crept slowly towards the center of the room. Clara turned away as the last few pieces of chalk began to drown.


End file.
